


Play It Loud

by boxparade



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: Apocalypse, Domestic, Kid Fic, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-28
Updated: 2011-07-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:52:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They built a tent out of patterned blankets and chairs, right in the middle of the living room, and stockpiled it with snacks and pillows and absolutely everything they could think of. There were boxes of Twinkies, chocolate bars, candy made from pure sugar that they would never have let into the house before..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play It Loud

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: If you like happy endings, leave now.
> 
> This might have a second part. I've started writing it but I'm not exactly sure how I want to finish it. We'll see. It took me forever just to post this part.
> 
> Title is from the Black Eyed Peas song by the same name. It was the only song I listened to while writing this. It would probably work as a soundtrack if one so desired.
> 
> Also, not betaed. None of my work is betaed, because apparently there is a super secret society of fanfiction writers and I missed the memo, so I don't know how to even go about finding a beta. xD Oops.

They built a tent out of patterned blankets and chairs, right in the middle of the living room, and stockpiled it with snacks and pillows and absolutely everything they could think of. There were boxes of Twinkies, chocolate bars, candy made from pure sugar that they would never have let into the house before.

The door of the tent let out to the kitchen, which had mostly been converted into a pantry. Cans of soup overflowed from the cabinets, along with pasta, easy mac, and ramen. They’d started using the fridge as storage space, considering it was useless without anything left that required constant refrigeration. Sunny D, that horrible sugary goo, had replaced Tropicana, and they were both trying to pretend they didn’t like it better.

They had the old Zenith television set up at another corner of the tent, the one with the built-in VCR, and they’d been playing all their favorite Disney movies on loop for days. Bedrooms were forgotten, baths were only necessary when someone started to smell, and the last phone call had come in a day and a half ago, in the dead of night, Ryan and Jon on the other end, saying everything they meant to say but saying it all wrong.

Brendon and Spencer understood anyway. By the time they’d all gotten to speaker phone and had been laughing about something random that happened years ago, the line went dead.

They’d been expecting it, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it still stung a little more than they’d thought it would. Still, that night, Spencer and Brendon fell asleep holding hands, cradling Todd and Amelia between them, careful not to let either fall into the crack between the mattresses.

In the morning, Spencer made pancakes. It was the last of their mix, a special vegan-like brand that only needed water and oil. The maple syrup was room-temperature and tasted a lot more like corn syrup, but they couldn’t get the real stuff, and it needed to be refrigerated anyway.

They made something of a big deal out of it, for the kids. The pancakes were roughly in the shape of Mickey, though an unfortunate incident involving the ladle and Spencer’s hips made one of them a little deformed. Brendon staunchly refused to apologize all through breakfast, flicking bits of one-eared, slant-faced Mickey pancake at Spencer.

They let Todd eat with his hands and spill his sippy cup more than once. Spencer had narrowed his eyes and theorized that he was doing it on purpose as a silent protest against having crappy juice instead of milk, but Todd was two and Brendon was fairly sure those were awesome conspiring skills for a toddler.

They spent the morning watching more Disney, though at this point the kids were getting sick of the same movies over and over. At least Amelia was; Spencer thought Todd was too young to recognize any sort of plot and realize it was the same movie about mermaids they’d watched yesterday morning. Brendon simply concluded that one could never watch enough Little Mermaid. 

Despite the kids’ protests, Spencer and Brendon still insisted on nap time just after lunch. Todd needed more sleep than that, but he could doze at other hours when they were doing puzzle games or trying to get through the Harry Potter books in words that Amelia could understand. Amelia was five, a bit old for an hour-long nap every day, but she must’ve been picking up on the stress in the air lately, so she didn’t protest nearly as much as she usually did.

Besides, their nap time was the only time Brendon and Spencer could get a moment for themselves, and while they hardly minded spending a week playing with the kids and being ridiculous, sometimes they needed some adult conversation to keep them going.

They usually retreated to the mud room on the main floor; it was close enough to the kids that they could hear if anything was wrong, but it was far enough that they wouldn’t wake the kids with normal speaking voices.

Spencer was getting Todd settled, and Brendon had given him a nod and headed off to the mud room first, leaving the door cracked and leaning against the wall. He only managed three seconds before his fingers reached to flip on the radio, FM 91.1, the only station still broadcasting, most of it through a chain of computers rigged at each of the radio towers since no one wanted to stick around.

There were two regulars, Jim and Megan, that usually handled all of the broadcasts. There had been rumors about the two of them being some couple holed up in some government office in D.C., receiving inside news about what was going on and broadcasting to the country because they’d drawn the short straw and weren’t being flown off to some “secure underground location” with the President and other higher-ups.

Brendon thought they sounded too nice to be politicians.

Right now, Jim was giving the same report as yesterday and the day before: “The asteroid is still projected to hit Earth in three days, the President is advising everyone to take cover as best they can from the effects of the impact. It is still unclear whether the asteroid will strike along the Canada-US border as predicted, or if the path has shifted again. People are advised to—”

“Shut it off,” Spencer said as he walked into the room, snapping the door shut behind him and leaning his weight against it. Brendon didn’t hesitate before turning the dial until it clicked, and the radio blinked out with a burst of static.

Brendon’s mouth was a thin, tight line when he looked up and met the blue of Spencer’s eyes. “Spence—” he started, but Spencer shook his head once, twice, tight and controlled, closing his eyes and clenching his hands into fists and trying to stop the shaking that had taken over the both of them since this entire things started a week and a half ago, after the last attempt to blow the damn thing up had failed.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said shortly, opening his eyes and pinpointing Brendon’s, clearer and bluer every time Brendon looked. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, or the slight possibility that Spencer was building himself up to tears and his eyes were just getting glassier with each passing day. “I don’t wanna think about it,” Spencer expanded, tearing his eyes away to flicker over to the radio, trying to glare it into short-circuiting.

Brendon didn’t know what to say, so he just gave a jerky nod and refocused his eyes to the floor, leaning with his hands pinned between his back and the wall, silent and trying to remember the way Spencer’s breath sounded.

Spencer let the silence be for a moment, standing stock-still in front of the door, thin enough that they could hear the kids through it. So far, they’d managed to keep them from knowing the worst of it. As far as Todd was concerned, all the television show characters were taking a vacation, and that’s why he couldn’t watch Spongebob every morning like he used to.

Amelia was a bit sharper, knew that something was wrong but not what. She didn’t seem particularly concerned, but she was clinging a little more closely, not complaining as much. When the phone lines went down, she asked if something was wrong. She asked why they’d stopped going to work, why she didn’t have to go to pre-school, why they had been holed up in a tent in the living room.

Brendon had choked on his words, and Spencer had cut in with a flimsy explanation that it was like a vacation, but one they had in their own house. It appeased her enough to stop any more questions. It didn’t really help with the churning, sharp feeling in Brendon’s gut. He hated lying to them.

When Spencer spoke, it was abrupt but soft, not really a surprise, more like it was always lurking in the background. “We’re out of juice. It looks like we’re stuck with water. Todd won’t be happy.”

Brendon shrugged; he wasn’t concerned with the food right now. They had enough to last them, had started stockpiling when they’d first heard the news as a precaution, before the looting had started and it got dangerous to go anywhere near the stores.

“I’m worried the water will shut off,” Spencer continued, voice flat and robotic, and Brendon felt a flash of anger at the fact that he was acting so closed-off at a time like this. He wanted some sort of sign of mania, complete turmoil or pain or anger, just so he knew he wasn’t the only one bearing the weight of this on his mind every aching second. The thoughts subsided though, because Brendon knew better than others that this was Spencer’s way of dealing with things.

“I’m thinking we should wash out the empty containers we’ve got, load them up with water and store them near the tent.”

“Okay,” Brendon responded automatically. 

“I’m thinking we should dig up the spices that we never use. The kids are gonna get sick of soup and pasta soon enough, and maybe if we add in enough and tell them it’s special, they won’t notice the redundancy.”

“Okay,” Brendon replied again, softly, staring at the floor without breathing because he wasn’t sure he had the tenacity to keep going like this. Maybe he would just forget how to breathe, drift into some sort of dream, somewhere else.

“I don’t think we’re going to have electricity much longer, either. We’re long past the point where people are actually staying at work, no matter what their orders. I guess we’ll have to improvise with the kids, hope the books will keep them occupied. Amelia’s going to wonder why the TV went off…”

Brendon stared at the air in front of his watering eyes, trying to stare hard enough to see each particle, or maybe just distracting himself so he wouldn’t feel the pain radiating through his chest. He knew it wasn’t just from the fact that he’d stopped breathing. Nothing was “just” anything anymore. Not “just” a blip on the radar, not “just” a routine mission, not “just” a precautionary evacuation, not “just” a fucking death sentence.

“Brendon!” Spencer jolted him out of his thoughts, startling the breath back into him as he snapped his head up. Brendon was going to say something about spacing out, sorry, continue, but something set Spencer off and he was banging his fist against the concrete wall. “Damn it, Brendon! I’m trying, here, the least you could do is pay attention.” 

Brendon stared blankly at Spencer, trying to take in the red in his cheeks and the hard line of his brow and the set of his jaw, combine them into some sort of whole that made sense like most things didn’t anymore. He felt like he was trying to remember how to be the person he had been, the person Spencer had married, the person that had stuck around to raise two amazing children with him and build a life founded on smiles and love.

He couldn’t remember the last time he smiled for real. It hurt every time he tried.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, averting his eyes because he couldn’t take on Spencer’s anger, too. He had too much of his own to fit anything else.

“Are you even here anymore?” Spencer bit back, and his voice was just below a shout, low so he wouldn’t wake the kids, practiced and familiar. “Or have I lost you already?” His tone crackled towards the end, ending in a swallow meant to cover up the fact that he’d nearly started falling apart.

“No,” Brendon replied, but even he could hear the way he didn’t mean it. They’d lasted so long just the way they were, doing what they had to without talking about it. Acting like the world wasn’t ending in less than a week, be damned what the radio said or the way the sky seemed oddly blue the last time they’d seen it, before most of the windows were boarded up, save for the small one in the mudroom they’d left to watch the sky for some sort of miracle.

“I’m here,” he forced out. He couldn’t help the catch in his voice or the shaking that started in his shoulders and burst outward like a firecracker in a bottle. Now wasn’t the time to break, they still had three days or so, he couldn’t do this now. There’d be time to grieve when he was dead, just not now, not now, not with Spencer—

“Do you think—” he started, ignoring the way his voice sounded like he was underwater. Spencer had waited all of a second before sliding over to him and wrapping an arm around his back, dropping his forehead to the side of Brendon’s neck. He started over, calming himself with a few rattling breaths, steadied only by Spencer’s weight against his side. “Do you think we did the right thing?”

Spencer shifted slightly and Brendon swallowed down the worst of his fears, continuing. “Staying here?”

Spencer took a breath in, held it, then let it out against Brendon’s shirt, the heat seeping through to warm the place directly above his heart. He thought, briefly, that it would be a good description to work into a song, but with three days and two kids, he didn’t know if he could ever make it happen.

“I don’t know,” Spencer replied honestly, and Brendon felt himself shudder at the reality of it, the slight chance that maybe things wouldn’t feel so damn final if they’d spent their final week running, trying to reach places that people said would be safe from the effects. They were all urban myths, places with “magical” protective qualities or an endless supply of food and water that was sheltered from the rest of the world. But maybe, if they’d gone, they’d be too distracted by the havoc to remember that everything was ending anyway.

“I think,” Spencer started again, stopping to catch a breath and shift his head so his nose was pressed into Brendon’s skin. “This is our home. I couldn’t have taken Amelia and Todd away from this, especially if we’re going to–” he stopped, editing out the word none of them would say and just pressing onwards “–anyway.”

Brendon nodded, sniffling and trying to take Spencer’s words as the absolute truth, because they were the closest thing to security that he had right now. He shifted so he could hook his arm around Spencer, pulling them close and shutting his eyes against the last bits of light the sun could spare for Earth.

“I feel guilty,” he admitted softly, strangely calm now that a part of him had accepted the way things were, finally.

Spencer made a questioning hum against Brendon’s neck, gently pressing for answers that they knew they’d never have. “For bringing them into the world just to watch it end,” Brendon let out, hugging Spencer tighter for fear that he’d finally see all Brendon’s flaws and decide it was all some sort of mistake, as ridiculous as that was.

But instead, Spencer just lifted his head up and back, darting his eyes between each of Brendon’s, watching them tear up and spill over in the silence of their breath. “Bren,” he started softly, “Bren, no. You didn’t—”

“They’re so young, Spence,” he choked out. His fingers fisting into the back of Spencer’s shirt, shaking and stronger than he’d imagined. “They’re so young, they can’t—”

“Shh,” Spencer hissed out hurriedly, pulling Brendon back in a rough grip, cradling the back of his head with hands too gentle and steady to be atomized by some damn asteroid in a few days.

Brendon hiccuped through his sobs, gasping for air that seemed heavier and more precious every day. He was babbling, he knew, but he was a mess and nothing less was expected, and he kept seeing Amelia and Todd and it hurt like he hoped it never would, because parents are supposed to die long before their children. “They can’t, Spence. They—Not now, not so soon, they can’t—”

Brendon shook when the words hit him, cracking him open in one swift blow right to the chest, and he couldn’t breathe. It was the word they’d all been avoiding, the one thing none of them would talk about, not even Jim and Megan, not the President. They were even avoiding The Lion King because of it, clinging to the faulty belief that their ignorance would save them.

“ _They can’t die_ ,” Brendon breathed, and he felt Spencer shatter in his arms, gripping Brendon so tight it almost hurt because it was finally out in the open. It was finally real.

“They can’t die,” he repeated brokenly, rehearsing it like a mantra, trying to catch his breath and put himself back together after what felt like a freight train crashed into him. It was the only thing that made sense anymore, because the world had spun off its axis and left them all lost and disoriented, grasping at straws of logic.

Brendon loved Amelia and Todd too much for this. He felt it like an eternal flame, impenetrable and sure, safe from the disaster happening around them. They couldn’t die; anything else was illogical, impossible, and not going to happen. Everything outside him pointed towards the worst, and he knew this was it, things weren’t going to get better. But something more, something inside him told him beyond a shadow of a doubt that this couldn’t be it. He would travel to hell and back a thousand times to save them from this, and he knew Spencer would too.

Anyone that was loved like that couldn’t die.

The world was a fucking horrible place.

“Spence,” he squeaked, teeth chattering despite the warmth of the Spring and Spencer pressed against him. “Spence, I don’t want this to be the end. I don’t want—”

“Shh-h-hh,” Spencer stuttered out, still shaking in Brendon’s arms, and Brendon couldn’t see his face but knew he was crying. He could feel it in his chest.

“I love them so much. So much it hurts, and I don’t want to have to watch them d—”

“Damn it, shut up,” Spencer barked, and didn’t wait to see if Brendon continued before pulling back and crashing his mouth against Brendon’s. Sharp bursts of pain sparked in his lips like firework bruises, and they were both rough and angry and so fucking sad and it all came out in the kiss, a thousand years of pain wrapped into a moment.

It all came crashing down on him, sometime in the middle of it. This was all they got. Three days.

There were a million and one things Brendon still wanted to do, a hundred thousand million that he wanted the kids to do. The weight of lost life before them was staggering; six billion lives with just as many dreams, all stuttering to a halt in three days. Of all that, Brendon only really cared about three lives. Two, if Spencer and him both agreed that their lives didn’t matter when it came to the kids, and he knew they both felt that way.

Amelia. Todd. They deserved decades upon decades, and all they got were three days. It wasn’t enough. No, it wasn’t nearly enough.

If it were any other time, he would’ve been embarrassed about the fact that he started crying too hard to keep kissing, but Spencer was right there with him.

Brendon didn’t think it was fair that he had to feel like the world had already ended when they still had three days left.

He could feel the minutes ticking by, and he’d had a counter running in the back of his head since the first announcement had been made, but that didn’t change the way Spencer and him stood still, foreheads touching and hands cradled around cheeks and shoulders. Their breath fell apart between them, quick and humid as they both attempted to calm down when they had every reason not to.

At first, Brendon had been a little pissed that he wasn’t allowed to freak out like everyone else in the world. They had the kids to worry about, and there wasn’t a lot of time for freaking out between tent-building and pancakes and Disney.

But now, he was grateful that this was all he got. A few solitary minutes in the mud room with Spencer, the kids sleeping in the other room and the sunlight desperately shining in an attempt to cheer them up. It was better this way, he thought, freaking out just to get it over with, no screaming in case they woke the kids and no extended snap-decisions to run halfway around the country, spending their life savings on useless things or looking for safe harbor.

This was simple, and it let them get back to their family and spend the time they had left together, singing along to well-worn Disney songs and making deformed pancakes. Somehow, that made things just a little bit more okay.

A soft, timid “Daddy?” pulled them from their trance, and they pulled apart and blinked at each other for a moment before stumbling into reality.

Brendon said “Amelia’s awake” and Spencer said “Yeah, we should—” and then they were both fumbling around each other to get to the door, wiping vigorously at their cheeks and trying to remember how to speak in even voices.

Brendon stopped Spencer just before he turned the doorknob, turning him by the shoulders and saying “hold on, just—” while he tried to wipe away any trace of tears around Spencer’s eyes with his fingers. Amelia was old enough to understand what crying looked like, but they liked to pretend that she wasn’t quite old enough to recognize the glassy, red eyes if you covered with a smile.

“Okay,” Brendon nodded, and sent Spencer through the door before Amelia worked herself up into a panic because she couldn’t find either of her parents. Brendon hovered back for a moment, still trying to catch his breath but feeling more and more like he never would. He wiped at his face a little more, tried to rub the redness from his eyes with his fists, wished there were a sink in here so he could splash some water in his face.

Instead, he just took a deep breath and followed out the door, weaving a path toward the whispers of sound coming from their tent, probably Amelia and Spencer conspiring to wake Todd up, even though they both knew they’d always wait until he woke up on his own.

Whatever the outside circumstances, the smile he saw on Amelia’s face when he crawled into the tent was enough to light his world for an eternity. He hoped, in the dark safety of the night, that it was enough to save them, too.


End file.
